


One Call, One Complete

by ERNest



Category: Mary Poppins - P. L. Travers
Genre: Gen, Long-Lived Bert, Longer-Lived Mary, Moral Lessons, Pathetic Fallacies, Portal jumping, Vanity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 11:35:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8100916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ERNest/pseuds/ERNest
Summary: Mary Poppins comes when she is called, but she finds it hard to leave. Bert wonders what she is thinking.





	

Mary Poppins comes when she is called, even if the children do not know what they’re asking for and might not like the answer once it arrives. She is rarely nice because that is not her job, and it is more of a side effect when it happens than an intended result. Never just plain Mary, she is a hurdle they need to get over and then all at once they are saying their heartfelt goodbyes. The time was swallowed up by chalk portals and chimney sweeps, and it was all worth it, but all in the past now.  
For all the final farewells Mary Poppins have lived through, she can’t quite manage to stay away. There is always one more thing she needs to do, until she is certain that the family can manage on their own. It does not do to hold onto such attachments forever, especially when she lives long enough to see her young charges become parents with children of their own.  
As a self-policing strategy she asks for signs after which she must turn her back for good. They are reasonably obscure so she has time to at least lay the groundwork for what she must achieve, but they are also more or less inevitable, to force her to move on. Contrary to popular opinion, Mary Poppins is not the creator of the metaphors and pathetic fallacies that echo the state of the world. The winds blow themselves, and metal can snap or rust whenever it likes, and she cannot control any of that. all she can do is ask nicely if the forces that be can occasionally tune into a certain house on a particular lane.  
She herself is a force of nature, often impossible to read, even for those who have known her the longest. She pulls out a mirror from a bottomless bag and examines her own face from different angles, while half a block away a man pauses in his painting or sweeping or music-making, and does the same. As he often does, Bert wonders what this incredible woman is thinking, and gets the impression that she doesn’t notice him at all. He has lived a long time and committed all the lines and planes of her to memory but she is the one thing he will never try to draw. She is too important to risk making a mistake, and besides that’s not the kind of friendship they have — he could never live it down if she found out that he’d tried.  
When Bert was a much younger man, as many years ago as the age he now appears to be, he thought that because he had found another person who kept cropping up through the decades, he wouldn’t have to be alone. But the more he saw of the world and the more he saw of Mary Poppins, he knew that she could not love him. Years passed and he discovered that he had been mistaken again. Mary Poppins did and does love him, but it’s just that she cannot help leaving when the signs pull her away from where she was.  
A few times he tried to forget himself and sought romance elsewhere, but no matter how much the moments meant, there was never time enough, and he found himself alone again. How much smaller must he seem to _her_ then? No wonder the two of them are as they have been. So these days he is married to his art instead, and his art is the London streets themselves. Just as she cannot stay forever, Bert finds it difficult to leave for any considerable length of time. He finds himself a guardian of the City, planting luck in the form of pennies and handshakes, and sometimes there is Mary Poppins. He makes the most of her visits, not knowing how long they will last this time, but every so often he looks at her and again, he wonders.  
Mary Poppins closes her mirror with a snap and deposits it into her voluminous bag once more. “Come along, spit spot,” she instructs the children waiting nearby, a boy and a girl. As the trio sweeps through the street she occasionally catches sight of herself in a shop window and slows down a fraction. She knows full well that she is vain, but it is in no way undeserved. More than seldom, she looks past her reflection to the busker she knows well and whom the children pay no mind. At last they make eye contact and she grins, and with a gesture she instructs her friend to meet them around the next corner. It is time now to give a different sort of lesson.


End file.
